The Dancing Plague
—Chrissie

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            In July 1518, a woman named Troffea stepped out of her Strasbourg home onto the street and began to dance. There was no accompanying music, and this was not a joyous occasion. Her family and friends asked why she was dancing, she didn’t know, they asked her to stop, she couldn’t. She continued dancing until she collapsed from exhaustion that night, then began again as soon as she awoke in the morning. A crowd gathered and only increased as days went by.

After about a week, Troffea was bundled onto a wagon and taken to the nearby shrine of St. Vitus, the patron of epileptics and dancers, in hopes of curing her. By  this time, however, Troffea was not alone; the compulsion proved contagious, and many of those who had been watching were now dancing. They, like Troffea, could offer no reason why they’d begun or why they could not stop.

Two potential explanations were presented at the time. The first was their blood had become too hot, prompting their bodies to release the excess energy to rebalance the humours. This possibility led to the city having a dance floor built in the square and hiring musicians to accompany the dancers, with the idea that they could recover more quickly if encouraged in their dancing. Some did stop after a while, but it seems to have drawn in more people than it cured. The other explanation was that they were cursed, either possessed by a demon or as punishment from St. Vitus for having spent too much time in things like dancing rather than being attentive to their faith. This possibility was reinforced by people being cured at St. Vitus’ shrine. The afflicted would be placed in front of a statue of St. Vitus, given a wooden cross to hold and red shoes placed on their feet. They would then be sprinkled with holy water and anointed on their feet, then prayed over until their dancing stopped.

After about a month, the plagued people slowly began walking away, none could explain why they had begun dancing, nor why they’d stopped. By September, it was over. In the end, about four hundred people danced, some of whom (we don’t know how many) stopped only when they died of exhaustion.

Modern explanations can be no more sure than those of the time. A theory that has been presented is ergot poisoning, which has a hallucinogenic effect akin to LSD and can cause convulsions. However, the other symptoms, numbness in the extremities, itching, and gastrointestinal distress are not recorded among either the dancers or those around them. The most likely explanation is a mass psychogenic illness, sometimes called a psychic epidemic, and may be more familiar to you under its previous name, “mass hysteria.” There is support for this, as other such events are historically documented, usually as a result of prolonged and significant stress. This can hold true of the Strasbourg choreomaniacs, as the previous years had seen extreme weather and poor harvests, leading to hunger and potential famine. Considering that such things have led to wars elsewhere in history, maybe the people of Strasbourg should count themselves lucky to have only danced themselves to death.